The announcement is expected after background checks and could come by week's end.

"I've had discussions about taking a position in the administration," Walters said Monday, but he declined to confirm that he'd accepted the drug policy job.

The drug czar is a key presidential aide, setting anti-drug policy, taking a lead role in lobbying Congress and becoming the chief national spokesman in the $19 billion annual federal fight against illegal drugs.

During the last Republican administration, Walters was the top deputy to William Bennett, who took a high profile approach to the job of drug czar, using the office as a national pulpit against drugs.

"John is the best person for the job. He is one of the three or four most knowledgeable people about the issue and he has a deep passion about the job of stopping illegal drugs," Bennett said Monday.

Walters headed the drug control policy office of supply reduction under Bennett, and frequently testified before Congress on behalf of increasing funding to law enforcement efforts to stop drugs.

He has backed the controversial program of certifying whether nations receiving U.S. aid are doing enough to stop drugs from being produced and smuggled into the United States. Under that law, a country that is not certified can lose American aid.

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle earlier this year, Walters said whoever was named Bush's drug czar would face a tough challenge.

Walters said there was increasing pressure across the political spectrum to call the war on drugs a failure.

"It is difficult to build a consensus, even among Republicans," Walters said. "The conservative side is split between the hard core law-and-order people and those who are more libertarian, who don't want the federal government deeply involved in people's lives."

It was not clear whether Walters will have Cabinet-level status. While the job is not Cabinet level by law, presidents can elevate the holder to a member of the Cabinet.

Republicans in Congress earlier this year urged Bush to make the drug czar a Cabinet appointee.

"We believe that any downgrade of the drug czar position below Cabinet status at the outset of your administration would be a political misstep," said a letter to Bush signed by key Republican House committee chairmen.

During the Clinton administration, Walters was a frequent critic of what he said was a drift away from the emphasis on drug enforcement and attacking the supply side of the problem to focus more on treatment and prevention.

In return, Clinton's former drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, questioned whether Walters would err on the side of increased enforcement at the expense of demand-side programs.

"I think he's focused too much on interdiction. I hope he educates himself carefully on prevention and treatment as an essential part of this strategy," McCaffrey said of Walters on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday.

McCaffrey also criticized Walters for opposing an expensive series of media advertisements paid by the drug control policy office as an anti-drug effort.

Those ads, produced by the Partnership for a Drug Free America under a $185 million annual contract, have been successful in reducing drug use among school-aged children, McCaffrey said.

But Steve Dnistrian, executive vice president of the anti-drug partnership, said he was hopeful Walters would continue the ad campaign.

"It is 1 percent of the anti-drug budget, and since it was launched we've seen drug use come down among the target audience after going up for the years before," Dnistrian said.

Walters would bring experience to the job of drug czar, Dnistrian said. "John knows the entire drug policy spectrum," he said. "That is a very distinct strength. He knows Capitol Hill and he knows the appropriation process, so he can jump right in."

The Bush administration considered a range of people for the drug czar job before selecting Walters.

And last week, former Notre Dame basketball coach Richard "Digger" Phelps met with White House officials to talk about the job. The South Bend Tribune quoted Phelps, who was a special assistant to the drug control policy office in the first Bush administration, saying, "I'm just exploring the possibility."